Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Over the past Month and a half I have been traveling to three major destinations, Florida, California, and England. I have been on the road for what seems like an eternity. I am warn out. We started out in Bradenton, FL for 17 or so days. The majority of the days we had two practices a day and worked to get into shape. We played a few teams down in Florida - Kansas City Wizards, Chicago Fire, and University of South Florida.

The next trip we took was to California where our hotel was right on the beach. I was nice to be able to wake up and go have my quiet time right on the beach next to the ocean. I have never had such and experience. We trained and played a few games. I only played 45 min the whole trip so I was kind of annoyed but God has a plan. I just have to be ready when called upon. We played San Jose, Chivas, and some PDL team. We did not play the best against any of the teams but we are starting to create some team chemistry.

In England we had a rough schedule. We were up late and got up early. We got in on Monday morning at 8:00am and had no time to sleep or anytime to ourselves. We had training later on Monday at the Blackburn training facilities. They were awesome. The training facilities of the English Premier League (EPL) Teams are a billion times better then ours. I went to three games while I was in the UK. The first game we went to was Liverpool vs. West Ham. The crowd was amazing. It was 100% better atmosphere than anything in the states. Liverpool won 4-0. The second game we went to was Bolton vs. Lisbon in a UEFA Champions League game. It was a really good game. The atmosphere was not as good as the Liverpool game but it was still fun. I do not remember the final score of the game... The last game we went to was Blackburn vs. Fulham. It was nice to see a bunch of Americans playing in the EPL. Blackburn has goalkeeper Brad Fridel and Fulham had Clint Demsey, Eddie Johnson, Brain McBride, Kasey Keller, and Carlos Bocanagra. The score line could not have been any better. It finished 1-1 with a fantastic goal by Fulham in the remain seconds to tie the game. I also forgot my camera for this last game so I do not have any photos from it. I am trying to get a few from some of the guys.

Overall, preseason is done. I have yet to break into the starting line up, but my spirit is high. I still believe I can make it here.

Oh yeah one more thing..... The Saturday we got back from England Columbus got 22 inches of snow, which gave me plenty of snow to play in. My roommate and I made the biggest snowman in the world. Seriously, it was 9 feet tall - at least. The link for the photos is here for the snow day....